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Plain of Bones
The Plain of Bones is a desert land, despoiled by windblown pollutants carried from the furnaces and factories of the Chaos Dwarf empire and ravaged by centuries of abuse by wandering tribes of Orcs and Goblins. The northern and eastern edges of this awful place abut the empire of the Chaos Dwarfs where the dread Tower of Gorgoth looks out over the Desolation of Azgorh. The southern boundary lies on beaches of poisoned land along the shores of the Sea of Dread. Overview The Plain of Bones is a desert of multi-coloured refractive sand from which rear huge rib-cages many times larger than a man. For this is the place where dragons came to die, to rest their bones among those of their ancestors as they had done for millions of years, before any other sentient beings walked the surface of the world. Here lie the bones of the great ancestral dragons: rib-cages as large as hills mingle with skulls the size of castle towers and leg-bones larger than mighty oak trees. These bones date from the great days of the draconic race, before their long decline. Today's dragons are a lesser breed, but mere pygmies compared to their ancestors. Since the time before the first great Chaos incursion, dragons flew to this parched land when they knew their time of dying was upon them. At the end of their last flight they would lie where they fell. No-one knows what instinct drew them here, but over the long millennia literally tens of thousands came here in their last hours. This continued until the time of the arrival of Chaos when Dark Magic seeped out of the north and malignant evil entered the corpses of the dead dragons. Soon the dead dragons stirred once more, their eyes bright with unnatural light, their bones peeking through their parchment skins. These fell creatures still prowl the Plain of Bones, evil and near mindless, driven by terrible unnatural hungers. Dragons are proud creatures and do not willingly submit themselves to such a fate. They no longer come here to die, though no-one now knows where they do go to end their days. Ever since then, Vampires and powerful Necromancers of all kinds have been known to take a pilgrimage to this ancient landscape where they pick through one amongst many Dragon remains. Once he finds a suitable corpse, the Vampire or Necromancer uses the excess Dark Magic that contaminates the land to resurrect the Dragon back to life as his eternal combat mount. These once majestic creatures stagger upright once more with a great despairing roar before stooping to allow their new master to ride atop their powerful shoulders. Among the bones of dragons lie the remains of many others, drawn to this dark land by the promise of near infinite wealth, because, for those willing to risk the perils, it is a source of astonishing riches. To aid their digestion dragons swallow vast amounts of gold and gems. These line their stomach, the grinding action helping to break down the vast meals that dragons must devour to stay alive. When dragons die their glittering carcasses often contain a king's ransom for those bold and foolish enough to try and claim it. In a land roasted by baking sun, devoid of any drinkable water and home to thousands of poisonous scorpions and mutated monsters, death comes easily. Some die after drinking from poisonous wells; others become prey for the great mummified Zombie Dragons. Many fall victim to their own greed and ignorance of elementary survival techniques. Their glistening bones lie strewn across the sands of this, the world's most inhospitable place. Four hundred years after the fall of Strigos to the greenskins, the shame of this defeat grew too much to bear for the Strigoi Vampire Vorag Bloodytooth, later called the first Ghoul King, and he gathered an army of Ghouls and set about rebuilding the lost kingdom. He created a new capital deep in the Plain of Bones and directed his rage at the neighbouring Goblin tribes, but once again, fighting that endless angry tide proved deadly, both to him and to his dreams, and his empire fell as Strigos before it. Around 2509 IC, as preparations were made by the Chaos Dwarfs for Tamurkhan's journey west of the Dark Lands, and in honour of the bargain struck with [[Drazhoath the Ashen|Drazhoath the Ashen]], Tamurkhan and his warriors joined in battle alongside the Legion of Azgorh against one of their most terrible and ancient foes, the dragon Omdra the Dread. This monster of legend had stirred once more and soon its dominion carried across the northern Plain of Bones and its colossal black-winged shadow scattered all before it in nightmare and terror. No mere beast - however great its size - was Omdra, but an ancient and wicked creature with dark magics to match even the vaunted [[Sayl the Faithless|Sayl the Faithless]], and at whose inhuman will gargantuan Maw Wyrms rose up from the black sands to give battle alongside packs of wanton and hungry Crypt Ghouls, to whom the dragon was no less than a god, and threw themselves with savage piety against the Kurgan. In this battle were thousands slain, both Kurgan and Chaos Dwarf together, and here did the great Chaos Spawn Garth'grak fall, and even mighty Bubebolos suffered grievous wounds as the Nightmare Dragon and its servants ambushed the horde's main column in the dead of night. At great cost in blood and sorcery was the Dragon-god herself gravely injured and driven away to slumber beneath the bones of her dead kin, her threat to the Desolation of Azgorh broken - at least for a time. In return for this effusion of slaughter on their behalf, the servants of Hashut honoured Tamurkhan with the gift of a war-axe fit to his stature, a darkly enchanted blade to replace the Tyrant's which had shattered in the granite-hard skull of a Maw Wyrm in battle. Also, at Tamurkhan's behest, they took the near hundred Giants that still fought with the horde and worked their arts of forge-craft and sorcery on them, encasing them in plated iron and fitting them with great hooked blades and picks, the better to scale and sunder the fortifications the horde must face when it reached the Empire. Canon conflicts According to Warhammer Armies: Tomb Kings from 6th Edition, the Plain of Bones was known as the Plains of Plenty in Nehekhara and were under the control of King Alcadizaar the Conqueror of Khemri , but this region was already described as 'parched' long before the Great Catastrophe. Nevertheless, Warhammer Armies: Tomb Kings of 8th Edition indicates that the armies of Nehekhara had marched into the Dark Lands even before the rise of Settra. Also in 6th Edition, Warhammer Armies: Vampire Counts says that Zombie Dragons were first awakened by the unholy Ritual of Nagash , instead of by the arrival of Chaos and Dark Magic. Sources * Warhammer Armies: Undead (4th Edition) ** pg. 10 * Warhammer Armies: Tomb Kings (6th Edition) ** pg. 10 * Warhammer Armies: Vampire Counts (6th Edition) ** pg. 32 * Warhammer Armies: Vampire Counts (8th Edition) ** pg. 49 ** pg. 55 * Warhammer Armies: Tomb Kings (8th Edition) ** pg. 8 * Warhammer Fantasy RPG 2nd ED -- Night's Dark Masters ** pg. 66-72 * Tamurkhan: The Throne of Chaos ** pg. 45-46 es:Llanura de los Huesos Category:Dark Lands Category:Deserts Category:Regions Category:Undead Category:B Category:P